The human brain, the most complex organ in the human body, is amazing in more ways than we could ever imagine. I am used to spending time learning about the reading brain. Reading Rockets has put together an excellent resource for understanding the reading brain: What We Know About Reading and the Brain, including this … [Read more…]
Over the last several weeks, I have had the opportunity to support special education teachers and students at the 7th through 12th grade level. I have learned a ton, and have a ton more to learn! My colleague and dear friend, Rachella, is retiring soon – just four short school days from now. Yikes! Although … [Read more…]
One of my favorite all-time quotes, which I reference often, comes from Brené Brown: … and as Mark Manson reminds us in the title of Chapter 6 in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%!, “You’re Wrong About Everything (But So Am I).” This entire book has been chalk-full of reminders that I am … [Read more…]
It is nearing the end of September, and the work remains difficult. As I’ve written several times since the start of this school year, our district is implementing lots of change. Lots. via GIPHY We have gone from a four-building district to a two-building district, meaning new grade levels and new staff are housed under … [Read more…]
In Daniel Willingham‘s book, Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make it Easy, he explains: “‘Knowing’ doesn’t mean being able to understand an explanation; it means being able to explain to others.” True evidence of learning is having the ability to restate, coherently, what you “know.” We want to “evaluate … [Read more…]
Everything is Figuroutable, and most things worth figuring out take time, hard work, perseverance, and collaboration. Proof of this very concept has come to light over and over again, including this past week. Collaborating with Coaches Our FMCSD instructional coaching staff was tasked with refining our district’s work around identifying essential standards for social emotional … [Read more…]
As our school district embarks on “Systems Coaching 2.0” (not the official name, but rather one given by our instructional coaching staff), I am recognizing inevitable resistance. The resistance is showing up in multiple forms, including passive resistance, outright “This is ridiculous,” comments, refusal to participate in conversations, angry looks and angry exchanges. While I … [Read more…]
It’s probably a bit too cliché to write about gratitude the week in which we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving, but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I’m proud to say that I regularly practice an attitude of gratitude, but that attitude was developed over time and is a constant work in progress. For … [Read more…]
This week has proven to be yet another in which I have found myself in pursuit of perseverance. As I’ve been writing recently, our district is shifting its instructional coaching model from an invite-only model to a systems coaching model, which means that we no longer wait to be invited into classrooms to support teachers … [Read more…]
I wrote about leaning into routines last week. At the risk of sounding contradictory, I’ve been thinking about change a lot this week. George Couros has inspired much of my thinking around change and has been the impetus for my writing past posts about it. You see, change really is inevitable. Whether we decide to … [Read more…]